You've Lived the Dream, welcome to the nightmare ! (Leeds United A.F.C.)

Member Name: amandarhino

Product:	Leeds United A.F.C.
Date:	15/10/06 (208 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very few right now

Disadvantages: where to begin

It's a sad day when one of the biggest clubs in England is all but relegated to the third tier of football for the first time in their history. It is even worse that a certain section of so-called Leeds fans felt that they should show their despair and anger at the club by invading the pitch, a minute from time.
The glory days of reaching the semi-finals of the Champions league are over. I remember one of the pundits on Sky Sports stating that "it's only a matter of time before Leeds United win the Premiership". This of course never did happen and to be honest it is hard to see that it will ever happen.
So what went wrong, it's basic economics that you can't spend money you just don't have but i guess this was overlooked by the Leeds United board a few years back. Leeds had some of the top players in Europe at one point including Rio Ferdinand, Harry Kewell, Alan Smith, Mark Viduka and Paul Robinson. But with increasing debt Leeds had to sell pretty much everything, incluing the kitchen sink. The slippery slope downwards happened pretty quickly...from just escaping relagtion with a good win at Arsenal one season to finally been relegated to the Championship.
The number of manager changes at Leeds United is ultimately questionable. From the sacking of David O'Leary there has been Terry Venables, Eddie Gray, Peter Reid, Kevin Blackwell and now Dennis Wise. Neither of them have stayed for very long. The players are the same, Leeds have mainly survived on using loan players because they have no money and this means that they could never form a strong team connection with all the chopping and changing.
At this time last year Leeds were in the Championship playoffs and were one game off returning to the big time but they were destroyed in Cadiff by Watford. A year later they are sitting in the bottom three, three points behind Hull City with one game to play. They need to make up a minus nine goal difference on the last day and I am sure you will agree 10-0 victories don't usually happen in football.
Dennis Wise said he would take full responsibility for what has happened at Leeds but he has ulimately been failed by mistakes made a long time before him. So what happens now, well Leeds do have a strong base of fans willing to sing "marching on together" to any side sporting a Leeds shirt at any level of football but no matter how much singing the fans do, the financial problems that remain are still a problem. Rumour has it that leeds may well struggle to survive as a club in a lower division, this would prove the death of a proud club.
I felt that The People newspaper summed up Leeds United today. On the back page was a full page picture of the pitch invasion yesterday and the headline " the club that died of shame" on the next page was a picture of Alan Smith, formally the golden boy of Leeds United, celebrating with Wayne Rooney as Leeds' arch rivals Man Utd moved five points clear of Chelsea to pretty much seal the Premiership title.

"You've Lived the dream" said Risdale to Leeds fans. Well, the dream it's over.

Summary: The future is dark